Fauci Has a Word About the 'Second Wave'

Anthony Fauci issued a word of calm Friday as coronavirus case numbers spiked across several US states. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said on CNN the latest uptick may not be the "second spike" many fear, but "when you start to see increases in hospitalization, that's a surefire situation that you've got to pay close attention to." He also said there may be no second COVID-19 wave this summer—despite predictions from some health experts—if people "approach it in the proper way" by social distancing, wearing masks in public, and following other CDC guidelines. In related news:

• Mask study: A new study says mask-wearing is even more effective than social distancing or staying home, Reuters reports. Published in PNAS: The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, the study adds that masks may have averted tens of thousands of cases. "This protective measure alone significantly reduced the number of infections, that is, by over 78,000 in Italy from April 6 to May 9 and over 66,000 in New York City from April 17 to May 9," the researchers say.
• State by state: As case numbers rise across roughly half a dozen US states, North Carolina and Texas are reporting their highest hospitalization rates of the pandemic. But Texas plans to keep reopening "because we have so many hospital beds available to anybody who gets ill," Gov. Greg Abbot said, per Business Insider. See a state-by-state rundown at USA Today.
• Worldwide: Beijing is battling a virus uptick by locking down 11 neighborhoods in the Fengtai district, the CBC reports. Meanwhile, India announced a single-day record with over 11,000 new cases; WHO says the pandemic is building in Africa; and the UN says hundreds of thousands of seafarers have been left stranded for months. Worldwide, over 7.6 million have tested positive and over 420,000 have died from the virus.

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